The first character who is a medic in these short stories is Rat Kiley, who appears in "The Things They Carried" and is revealed to be a medic through the things that he carries that are particular to him, as the text reveals:

As a medic, Rat Kiley carried a canvas satchel filled with morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a medic must carry...

Rat Kiley is the medic who appears in the majority of these stories, but in "The Ghost Soldiers," a new medic is brought in to replace Rat Kiley when he was wounded and taken to Japan to hospital. His name was Bobby Jorgenson and it is a mistake that he makes when treating the narrator of this story that leads the narrator to desire revenge against him. The two medics in this collection of short stories are therefore named Rat Kiley and Bobby Jorgenson.